Wordle Wars 🟩

Josh Wardle got paid. He deserves every penny of that payment.

But it’s been fascinating to see how people have reacted to this whole Wordle thing, which has become the biggest mobile game phenomenon this side of HQ—which, itself, used most of the techniques that made Wordle a hit (scarcity, simplicity, appointment viewing).

I think the strangest thing about the whole Wordle phenomenon is that it highlights how we can’t even agree on a simple puzzle game anymore. Sure, lots of people simply enjoyed it for what it was, but there was a surprising contingent of the “this is annoying” crowd on this one, even before The New York Times got involved.

I’ve been thinking a bit lately about cultural divides and what gets us to come together, and honestly the last thing I can think of is the early part of the COVID-19 crisis. shockingly, it somehow worked … for a while, at least.

But the problem was we were looking for opportunities to divide ourselves, to be annoyed, to question the obvious solutions. We even treated our facial coverings as some sort of grand political statement. And hence, more division.

Wordle, which may or may not go behind a paywall eventually, is a game that has one single word to share with us each day, and usually that word is innocuous. Its sharing mechanism is silly and fun. And its cost of entry is (for now), literally, zero.

It’s not something built to divide us, but its own innocuous nature created something that significant numbers of people could find fault in. It could feel like politicizing the crossword.

And to me, that points to a degree of societal rot that it may take us a while to crawl out of. People got upset because it was being shared too much, and in a way that frustrated and divided those who weren’t into the game. People got upset because it was being cloned too much. People got upset because the creator “sold out,” whatever that means. Some jackass even made a bot designed to spoil the game for people.

I think in a lot of ways, folks are looking for release right now, a break from the frustration that often follows through these disastrous moments where it seems like doomscrolling is in constant threat of becoming doomliving. This word game, as small as it was, was just that kind of release for some.

But it wasn’t enough for other people, and for that reason, it makes you wonder if we’ll ever truly have a shared positive experience as a full society ever again.

I know, real optimistic today.